BHUBANESWAR: The Strategic Forces Command of Indian Army on Wednesday successfully conducted a night trial of nuclear-capable ballistic missile Prithvi-II from a defence test facility off Odisha coast.Mounted on a Mobile Tatra transporter-erector Launcher (MTL), the short-range surface-to-surface missile was test fired from the launching complex III (LC-III) of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at about 7.30 pm.
Equipped with a state of the art guidance system the indigenously developed missile was fired in a real-time in full operational configurations. “This was a copy book success and the missile travelled nearly 300 km as coordinated. It was a successful mission accomplished,” said a defence official.
The test came a day after the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully test fired a laser guided anti tank missile from MBT Arjun at KK Ranges, Ahmednagar in Maharashtra. Capable of tracking the targets with the help of laser designation to ensure precision hit accuracy, the missile engaged a target located at 3 km.
However, the night trial of Prithvi assumed significance as the missiles fired in the dark are difficult to be tracked and shot down. Prithvi-II, capable of attacking targets at a range of 350 km, is India’s first developed and inducted indigenous surface-to-surface strategic missile.
The test proved the reliability of the weapon and reconfirmed its operational readiness. It can be fired anytime and in any terrain in short notice. All the radars, electro-optical systems located along the coast have tracked and monitored all the parameters of the missile throughout the flight path.
Guided all through by an inertial navigation system and controlled by the thrust vector control and aero-dynamic control systems, the missile reached the predefined target in the Bay of Bengal with a very high accuracy of better than 10 meters.
The nine meter long missile with a diameter of one metre has the capability to carry one tonne of warhead. The missile thrusted by liquid propulsion twin engine uses an inertial guidance system while the warhead uses a radar correlation terminal guidance system.
The single stage liquid propelled weapon developed by DRDO was inducted into the Armed Forces in 2003 and is into series of production since then. One of the missiles drawn from the inventory was used for the test. Two rounds of the tests of the missile were conducted during night in November last year.